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Cheeky, quirky and unique – this is what the 14-strong team at Australian surfwear brand Mambo aims to emulate through their social media channels. A few years ago, Mambo launched their Facebook page. “None of us really knew anything about it,” admits Mambo’s digital producer Ben Everden. Now, Mambo has a swag of social media channels, including Facebook, Google+, YouTube, Twitter, a WordPress blog and a channel on video site Vimeo.

An exclusive clubThe goal of social media is not quantity. “We want to have people who are actually fans of Mambo,” says Everden. “If we wanted to have [a lot] of people on there, we could do a promotion and make people ‘like’ it to win a prize. With that comes problems because they aren’t people who are genuinely fans of the brand.”

Provide your customers with genuine conversation and content and growth will come organically. Once you have the numbers, it can be shown to investors as proof of brand popularity or used for advertising.

“Eventually we’d like to have 200,000 people on our Facebook page that we can then use as a marketing tool,” he says. For example, while a magazine might have a circulation of 10,000, Mambo could “already hit 100,000 people on a daily basis if we post on our Facebook page”.

Mambo warns against posting the same content on Twitter and Facebook. “The users are smart enough to know that you’re just posting the same thing,” he says. “You actually have to engage each network on a separate level to make sure you’re covering off all bases.” In doing this, you not only increase the chances of gaining new followers, the level of engagement per user across the platforms is much higher.

Giving your brand a faceDeveloping a personality for a brand is challenging. Mambo’s solution was to identify what made something ‘Mambo’, and tick one of these with each post. “With the bigger brands like Billabong and Quicksilver, they’ve got million dollar surf teams so we can’t compete with them on that,” he says. “We try to engage people who are into the pillars that Mambo stands for – surf, skate, art, music and humour.

Quick tips from Mambo• Ask questions and engage in conversation. Don’t just say ‘thanks’ or ‘great’ on a reply to somebody. Always ask a question or engage conversation from other followers.

• On Twitter and Facebook, mention as many people as you can so that the post goes to their account as well.

• It’s not all about words; experiment with visual content.

• Keep posts short and sweet. Even on a 30-40 second video, Mambo gets a lot of plays but not a lot of finishes.

• Track the success of campaigns by measuring fan engagement.

• Don’t be afraid to invest a little money. Facebook advertising is effective and cheap.

• Create a community of raving fans – they’ll talk about your business, recommend your business and become loyal customers.